Guardian Letters Page Throws Up a Surprise

I’m not sure I can remember seeing a newspaper publish a letter so overtly hostile towards and critical of the newspaper itself as one in today’s Guardian. It begins with the following sentence:

The reason that you receive letters exclusively from people (including Jews) who are hostile to Israel is that no one who supports Israel bothers to read the Guardian any more. That is why your circulation is dwindling to zero, by the way.

Kudos to the writer Josephine Bacon although I’m wondering if she was also surprised to see that her letter had actually made it into print.

The following comment (written by PeteCW) was deleted by moderators under an article about antisemitism written by Jonathan Freedman. Its deletion demonstrates the truth of its content:

“All very well and there are good strong points here – but this article only serves to underline the double standards that unfortunately come into play when The Guardian turns its attention to anti-semitisim. There is a ‘whiff of anti-semitism’ in its anti-Israel articles and comments, and I believe that that comes from the unnerving obsession that The Guardian has with publishing them, as much as the actual content.

It is the sheer amount of them, and the distortions used to justify them, that raises questions. It is an amount disproportionate to the real impact Israel has on the world (‘look at the Arab Spring’ – modernism and tradition, Sunni and Shiite are the driving forces among the ME’s Muslims). While all right wing governments are, at the very least, problematic, and a country at constant war with its surrounding culture is often going to make clumsy military decisions, the amount of attention devoted to this small troubled democracy raises issues about why it should be the focus of such furious attention.

There are no nuanced articles about Israel, no attempts in the left wing media to promote solidarity with progressive elements among Israeli Jews, and perhaps achieve some of the solutions that the Left claims to desire – just incessant condemnation and a refusal to take the resulting worries about anti-semitism at all seriously. In fact to condemn those worries – that mainly come from the left itself – as dishonest and subversive.

Can you imagine an article like JF’s, with its accompanying often very well-argued and deeply considered BTL comments, ever being written about the grotesque and not-at-all-elusive Jew hatred common throughout Arab Muslim media? The Protocols Of Zion and Mein Kampf being promoted as political tracts throughout the Middle East? No need for forensic examination of what is really meant there, but apparently Jew-hatred in the ME are not worthy of examination – they are not our enemy like Dacre’s mob are.

That’s where the whiff of anti-semitism in The Guardian and amongst certain of its commenters comes from – in the constant cavalier lack of interest in applying the same nuanced concerns about bigotry and anti-Jewish tropes that it would about gay people, black and Asian people, women, the disabled. In the accusation that any worries of anti-semitism are only ever an attempt to end criticism of Israel. The inherent double standards in how it treats Jews and how it treats other ‘others’.

(It depresses me because The Guardian is so very often a force for good in this country, politically and culturally. It irritates the hell out of me very often but every other paper turns my stomach, I’ll keep spending too much time pottering around its website.)

Guardian readers with an interest in Israel would do very well to head over to the Daily Forward site where they will find left/liberal takes on Israel that retain progressive values and integrity and many calm, reasoned articles on injustices in Israel, and attempts to find solutions to the Israel/Palestine problem that don’t simply involve expelling Jews and hurling them back onto the tender mercies of Europe. I believe it is an object lesson in how to approach Israel and also keep progressive values intact – it certainly draws enough bile from the right wing to reassure me that it is infuriating the right people.

And for what it’s worth, Dacre and the Mail are the filth that every society produces, unfortunately. Dacre and his readers are the kind of people who would have gone along with Nazi policies and followed orders if the Germans had crossed the Channel – their culture of snivelling viciousness is instantly recognisable from histories of pre-war European Jew hatred.

The articles contain enough anti-Jewish dog whistles to justify raising the issue of anti-semitism but we should link this categorically to their hatred of all minority groups – there needs to be solidarity amongst those millions that the Mail has declared its enemies.”

The following comment (written by PeteCW) was deleted by moderators under an article about antisemitism written by Jonathan Freedman. Its deletion demonstrates the truth of its content:

“All very well and there are good strong points here – but this article only serves to underline the double standards that unfortunately come into play when The Guardian turns its attention to anti-semitisim. There is a ‘whiff of anti-semitism’ in its anti-Israel articles and comments, and I believe that that comes from the unnerving obsession that The Guardian has with publishing them, as much as the actual content.

It is the sheer amount of them, and the distortions used to justify them, that raises questions. It is an amount disproportionate to the real impact Israel has on the world (‘look at the Arab Spring’ – modernism and tradition, Sunni and Shiite are the driving forces among the ME’s Muslims). While all right wing governments are, at the very least, problematic, and a country at constant war with its surrounding culture is often going to make clumsy military decisions, the amount of attention devoted to this small troubled democracy raises issues about why it should be the focus of such furious attention.

There are no nuanced articles about Israel, no attempts in the left wing media to promote solidarity with progressive elements among Israeli Jews, and perhaps achieve some of the solutions that the Left claims to desire – just incessant condemnation and a refusal to take the resulting worries about anti-semitism at all seriously. In fact to condemn those worries – that mainly come from the left itself – as dishonest and subversive.

Can you imagine an article like JF’s, with its accompanying often very well-argued and deeply considered BTL comments, ever being written about the grotesque and not-at-all-elusive Jew hatred common throughout Arab Muslim media? The Protocols Of Zion and Mein Kampf being promoted as political tracts throughout the Middle East? No need for forensic examination of what is really meant there, but apparently Jew-hatred in the ME are not worthy of examination – they are not our enemy like Dacre’s mob are.

That’s where the whiff of anti-semitism in The Guardian and amongst certain of its commenters comes from – in the constant cavalier lack of interest in applying the same nuanced concerns about bigotry and anti-Jewish tropes that it would about gay people, black and Asian people, women, the disabled. In the accusation that any worries of anti-semitism are only ever an attempt to end criticism of Israel. The inherent double standards in how it treats Jews and how it treats other ‘others’.

(It depresses me because The Guardian is so very often a force for good in this country, politically and culturally. It irritates the hell out of me very often but every other paper turns my stomach, I’ll keep spending too much time pottering around its website.)

Guardian readers with an interest in Israel would do very well to head over to the Daily Forward site where they will find left/liberal takes on Israel that retain progressive values and integrity and many calm, reasoned articles on injustices in Israel, and attempts to find solutions to the Israel/Palestine problem that don’t simply involve expelling Jews and hurling them back onto the tender mercies of Europe. I believe it is an object lesson in how to approach Israel and also keep progressive values intact – it certainly draws enough bile from the right wing to reassure me that it is infuriating the right people.

And for what it’s worth, Dacre and the Mail are the filth that every society produces, unfortunately. Dacre and his readers are the kind of people who would have gone along with Nazi policies and followed orders if the Germans had crossed the Channel – their culture of snivelling viciousness is instantly recognisable from histories of pre-war European Jew hatred.

The articles contain enough anti-Jewish dog whistles to justify raising the issue of anti-semitism but we should link this categorically to their hatred of all minority groups – there needs to be solidarity amongst those millions that the Mail has declared its enemies.”

Ian Flowers: My father had a subscription to the Guardian when I was a boy. I read it constantly and recall a discerning, well written, astute publication with a sense of fairness. The “descent” of the Guardian to the anti-Semitic “red/green alliance” rag it has become is so disappointing. I wouldn’t read or purchase the Guardian again until they drop their “lethal obsession” blindness about Israel and start reporting the truth about the Middle East and Israel again. I hope that happens in my lifetime, but I’ not optimistic.

I was introduced to the Manchester Guardian when a student in the 1960s. The Warden of our Hall insisted on having one serious paper delivered daily, the students were allowed 5 daily papers. There was always a queue for the tabloids while the Guardian was left unread. I decided to try it & read it then until the 1980s when it seemed to change. It became so polarised particularly in its attitude to Israel that I have never read it since, not even online.